Saturday, February 28, 2015

Running Against The Grain

Saturday, February 28, 2015


Sometimes I feel as if I am in the midst of a protracted adolescent rebellion.  This does not surprise me considering how I felt my original (chronological) adolescence was effectively truncated by the manner in which my father and stepmother 'raised' me.  I feel as if I am still making up for lost time.

One way I occasionally feel that my 'rebelliousness' manifests is as a strong form apathy.  I feel that I have done plenty to show up in the world in a healthy way.  I was a very well behaved child and teenager who tolerated a lot of dysfunction around me.  Despite my far from optimal circumstances I became a good man.  I gave years of my life in volunteer service when I was a younger man in my twenties.  I feel I have very little to show for all my hard work, kindness and compassion.

I feel my heart is still in the process of filling up again.  My heart had been running virtually on empty for quite a while.  As I continue to practice and improve my own self-care skills I feel myself growing stronger and healthier with each passing day.

Meteorological winter ends today.  I am grateful that the seasons are in the process of turning.  It is time for a new cycle of growth.


Friday, February 27, 2015

An Illuminated World

Friday, February 27, 2015


Today I had yet another experience of appreciating the beauty of the world.  At the end of February in 2014 we had approximately twenty inches of snow on the ground here in the Twin Cities.  We currently have a meager inch of snow laying around outside right now.  There are many, many brown spots where you might expect to find white.

While out and about early this afternoon I found myself noticing how light is again filling up the world. The illumination of the sun is growing stronger and longer each day.  Though I had undergone quite a bit of EMDR therapy by this time last year it seems that my perception of the vividness of the world is still growing in intensity.  My life sometimes feels a bit like a Disney movie.  Daylight even seems to have a texture to it.  Prior to my entry into therapy in 2013 the world seemed to have quite a flat quality.  But this flat quality was due to my distorted perception.

I have felt upset and irritated throughout much of today.  But I am growing more accepting of the reality of my feelings.  I am giving myself more and more permission to feel badly.  By reducing my resistance to feeling bad I am finding my way through to the other side of my journey of healing.

Experiencing light as possessing an actual texture is no longer that novel for me.  It was novel for me back in 2013.  I find myself adjusting quite well to my growing ability to perceive the world about me in a healthy way.

Spring is coming.


Thursday, February 26, 2015

Allowing Pain To Be


Thursday, February 26, 2015


I have completed two weeks of an intensive program I am currently attending in the mornings from Monday through Thursday.  I am feeling better now.  I just wish I felt more hopeful about my future career evolution.  But just because I do not feel hopeful about it improving does not mean that it won’t.

I suppose the biggest step forward I have recently made has been my willingness to allow for more space in my life for the pain, frustration, sadness and confusion I still often feel.  Allowing my pain to be without trying to immediately get rid of it is an important step forward.  Sometimes we may feel incredibly horrible.  This is something called a normal human experience.  I can make space in my heart for my sadness and other difficult feelings as well as beauty, love, joy, fun and a much brighter future.  I can make space for both the light and the darkness of my life.

I had a telephone ‘meeting’ with my therapist last night.  We focused on reviewing our notes regarding my past trauma history.  I was pleased to confirm that we have completed a vast majority of the trauma resolution work of my healing process.  There is still other work I can do but the nature of what I need to focus on has significantly changed.  I need to focus on moving forward by clearly defining my values and then following (and continuing to follow) my values.

I find late February to be a wearisome time here in Minnesota.  The days continue to be very cold.  But the strength of the sun is steadily growing now.  Spring is not too many days away now.

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

When Does It Get (Much) Better?


Tuesday, February 24, 2015



A few weeks ago I read about this concept of inclusive capitalism in an article about Hilary Clinton's interest in the White House.

Lately I can't help but feel jaded about my prospects here in this country. And I sense many feel the same way. A recent cover story in the Star Tribune newspaper reminded me of this strange economy we now have in which opportunity to get ahead in any form whatsoever now appears to be a thing of the past...or something only the very wealthy or well connected can experience.

I felt heightened frustration with my job search process today while sitting in the company of my placement assistant from Rise, Inc.  I don't attribute my current dissatisfaction to anything she is doing per se.  I believe she is making a good effort to assist me.

I have a friend who was let go from his job just before his ten year anniversary would have occurred and allowed him to reap certain benefits of the commitment he had made to this one employer. I know others who cannot find a job worthy of their skills too. And many continue to do temp work because there is nothing better available out there. Is a whole generation of people going to be consumed by this nonsense?

The cover story in the Tribune spoke of people whose wages are stalled and how this has been true in America for decades now. The article profiled one person who went back to school in the hope that it would open up new doors of opportunity. Instead the person accrued a lot more debt and then graduated in 2008 as the economy collapsed...and ultimately has not found permanent work...in seven years.

I think this economy we live with is grinding people down...slowly but surely. I certainly have experienced it...and it leads me to not want to participate. When more and more people get left behind what is the point in continuing with the charade?

When companies won't invest in people for the long term why should workers invest themselves in companies for the long term? I find much of our work culture in this country to be demoralizing and borderline abusive. We the corporate sheeple have allowed this to happen. Through the confluence of a number of factors I often find it difficult not to think the American dream is on its way to the scrap heap.  It's sad.

......

Today I again thought about the teenage boy who once tried to murder my father.  But I'm not going to write an additional piece of a letter to him tonight.  Just fulfilling the commitments I made to myself for today has been enough.  I went to the gym and exercised for nearly an hour.  I bought the ingredients for a healthy dinner.  I looked for a job despite the fact that I felt little motivation to do so.  And I consciously breathed through my moments of immense frustration.

Today was apparently a day of numerous small victories.  And that is enough for today.

Monday, February 23, 2015

An Open Letter to Someone I Never Met, Part III

Monday, February 23, 2015


[I am continuing to write to the person who, as a teenage boy, attempted to murder my father]

It's a cold Monday night in late February now.  I wonder where you might live now...if you are actually still alive.  I am growing weary of winter now.  But at least there is a shred of light in the evening sky at 6:30 pm.  We call this progress towards spring here in Minnesota.  The temperature outside might soon plunge below 0F again but at least the days are growing much longer now.

I lost a lot of confidence in myself after my father was nearly murdered.  I am finally beginning to better understood how and why this came to pass.  I wanted to run away before he was nearly murdered.  Doing so might have provided me release from the abuse my stepsisters were heaping on me.  But running away could have opened up a world of even greater harm.  I also wanted to run away after my father was discharged from the hospital as well.  I became a very good liar at the mere age of eight years old.  Today I feel it is a very sad thing that a boy of eight years of age should learn to become a liar.

I also feel sad when I read the comment I made above in which I express curiosity as to whether you might still be alive.  Much of my childhood felt like a revolving door of changing characters.  There were so many people who came and went throughout the earliest years of my life.  Somehow this experience led me to start feeling skeptical that a truly stable life was even possible.  I am still teaching myself how to create stability.  The world beyond my windows here in the United States of America doesn't often appeal to me these days.  Our economy has been moribund for years.

I still have moments in which I wonder who I could have become had any number of distressing events in my childhood never happened.  I wonder how my own adolescence might have been different if my father had not been nearly murdered.  In this regard I feel it perfectly fair to think of you as one of a number of thieves who entered my life without my permission and later exited my life with a piece of my heart and mind in your possession.

But I still try to have empathy for the person you were at that time in June, 1982.  Sometimes I feel so sad that I simply want to do nothing but sit in a sunlit room, breathe and enjoy the view of clouds passing by in the sky.

I wonder if you ever had a big brother.  Perhaps you did and he was a harmful influence on your own development.  Perhaps you did not and would have benefited from one.  I find myself aware of the deep yearning I long carried to have a big brother of my own.  Perhaps having a big brother of my own would have provided me more healthy opportunities to play and gain confidence that the world at large can be and is a place filled with love, kindness and opportunity.

I want to live a life without harsh and consuming sadness.


What I Have Done In Regards To Forgiveness

Monday, February 23, 2015



Yesterday I wrote about the topic of forgiveness.  I recently began a workshop offered by Mary Hayes Grieco on the subject of forgiveness.  I referenced some of the introductory materials I received in my writing yesterday.

While beginning to more deeply ponder my personal journey with forgiveness yesterday I recognized that I have been working on the first four steps for the twenty months I have been going to therapy.  I have had the strong desire to release the story of what happened to me so that I may move on.  I have amply and deeply expressed my emotions about what I experienced.  I have also been releasing the expectations I have held in my mind as well as sorting out and establishing healthy boundaries.

I see quite clearly that it is my expectations, expressed and unexpressed, that have indeed been causing me to suffer.  As my committed action in support of my healing today I am simply going to write out the many expectations I have held which I have not had met.  In some instances I will use the word ‘should’ as another means of expressing an expectation.  Here they are:

I should have a father who takes timely cues regarding his inappropriate and disrespectful behavior such that he treats me with respect and dignity.  In other words, my father should take the fact that he has previously apologized to me for his hurtful behavior as a cue that there is something within him he needs to look at.

But he hasn’t done this.

I hoped and dreamed of having parents who could be truly present to my needs and my pain on a consistent basis.

This has not happened.  In times when I have most needed love and support members of my families of origin such as my birthparents have repeatedly failed to fulfill my needs.
So in essence my expectation of getting my basic needs met was not regularly fulfilled.

I hoped that my past expressions of my displeasure, pain, sorrow, anger and frustration regarding the quality of my relationships with members of my family of origin might inspire a change of heart in them.

This has not occurred.

I expected people who are practicing Catholics to embody values that clearly align with the teachings of who I understand Jesus Christ was in his reputed earthly life.

I have instead witnessed and been affected by behavior that does not align with Christian values.

......

Much of the trauma I experienced occurred due to a violation of my own boundaries:

  • The expectation that I should automatically be returned to my father’s custody after he was discharged from the hospital (after he was nearly murdered) and that I should be comfortable with this decision after the horrific trauma I had endured was an incredibly unreasonable and harmful expectation.
  • The expectation that I should not question my father’s very sanity after his poor choices caused me immense harm was also a harmful expectation for me to internalize.
  • More recently I have become fully conscious of another deep hope I long held.  I long hoped (and expected) that confronting my family of origin about these unresolved issues would eventually lead to some sort of healthy resolution for all parties involved.  And yet no amount of effort on my part has resulted in the outcome I desire.


Some time ago I came to the conclusion it is best to no longer interact with my father and his siblings and his siblings’ spouses.  My hopes are typically always dashed after I attempt to engage with them.  I rarely if ever feel seen, heard or valued.


Rather than spend any time attempting to forgive my paternal family of origin for the ways in which they ignored my pain and failed to fulfill my needs I decided it is far better to focus on forgiving myself:

I wish to focus on forgiving myself for tolerating the unhealthy behavior of my family of origin for so long.  I suffered because I internalized an expectation of myself that was not kind or healthy.  I expected myself to accept their behavior as appropriate to the realm of healthy adults.  I expected myself to meet their expectations regardless of what it did to me to do so.

I believe I can live a better life.  To live a better life I need to let go of those aspects of my life which do not support me as I strive to realize my greatest potential.

I still feel a lot of sadness these days.  But as I continue to acknowledge the existence of my sadness I feel the burden of it continuing to lighten up.

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Forgiveness As A Way Forward

Sunday, February 22, 2015


"It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men." - Frederick Douglass

I had a rewarding and relaxing weekend.  I am glad that I am continuing to remain committed to my own journey of personal growth.    Diligence and patience can eventually lead you to reap many rewards.

One of the highlights of my weekend was beginning a workshop offered by Mary Hayes Grieco.  The workshop is entitled Forgiving the Unforgivable.  It will meet five Sundays in a row.  According to her website Mary is "a respected spiritual teacher...a pragmatic emotional healer and an uplifting speaker."  She has taught spirituality classes since 1982.

Our initial class meeting today provided me with a definition of forgiveness I do not recall previously hearing: "Forgiveness is releasing an expectation that is causing you to suffer."  As I pondered this description of forgiveness I found myself immediately believing the truth of these words.

The course materials I received today introduced me to a forgiveness method that consists of eight steps.  These steps are as follows:

  • 1- State your will to release this story and move on
  • 2- Express your emotions about what happened
  • 3- Release the expectation(s) you are holding in your mind, one by one
  • 4- Sort out the boundaries: give others responsibility for their actions and take yours; visualize your personal space whole, and filled with light
  • 5- Open up to get your needs met by the Universe in a new way
  • 6- Receive healing from your soul and from Spirit into your body, emotions and mind
  • 7- Send unconditional love to the person or situation, and release them
  • 8- See the good in the person or situation; focus on that point of view

Over the next five weeks (and perhaps beyond) I will likely incorporate the teachings of this course into my daily writings.  We shall see what happens.

......

In other news I found myself thinking of the teenage boy who once tried to murder my father.  I poured out a lot of my heart into my recent writings.  I suppose I will keep adding to the open letter I began last week.

Day in and day out I keep moving forward.  I hope one day to reap the fruits of my dedicated labors.


Saturday, February 21, 2015

Can You Help Me Remember How To Smile?

Saturday, February 21, 2015


Today I again listened to a song called Runaway Train performed by Soul Asylum.  The song and its dark theme regarding runaway children came (back) into my consciousness last month one morning when I was at Walgreens in downtown Minneapolis.  I wasn't expecting to hear the song that morning.  I was on the verge of tears as I left Walgreens.

I find the music video (which you can find here) quite provocative.  As the lyrics unfold images of children who went missing some twenty or more years ago play across the screen.  When I first watched the video last month I decided to look up the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children online.  The organization began in 1984 and serves "as the nation's clearinghouse on issues related to missing and sexually exploited children."  The NCMEC website also describes the organization as "the leading nonprofit organization in the U.S. providing assistance to law enforcement and families to find missing children, reduce child sexual exploitation and prevent child victimization."

Prior to the creation of NCMEC there was no organization that could specifically assist law enforcement and the parents of a missing child to coordinate a response for the purpose of bringing the child safely home.  Police could make use of an FBI crime database to enter, manage and disseminate information regarding stolen cars, stolen guns and, yes, even stolen horses.  Stolen children were not included.  A number of publicized tragic cases of missing children in New York, Georgia and Florida eventually inspired a change in policy.  If you have experienced the trauma of losing a child NCMEC may be able to provide you substantial assistance or referrals.

I find it interesting to read up on the history of the United States' policy response to the issue of missing children.  Had I run away from my own home in the summer of 1982 it seems there would have been a very good chance that I could have suffered very grave harm.  I could have been abducted, exploited or even murdered.  I suffered through a lot of trauma as a kid.  But running away could have made my circumstances far worse.  I chose what I perceived to be the lesser of two bad scenarios.

A particular lyric of the Runaway Train song deeply moves me:

Can you help me remember how to smile? Make it somehow all seem worthwhile.  How on earth did I get so jaded? Life's mystery seems so faded!

I find these words so packed with power.  I am remembering how to smile now.  I am also learning to enhance my skills so I can regain my sense that life is indeed worthwhile.  I have wondered how I became so cynical and jaded.  And for a very long time life did indeed seem quite faded.  EMDR therapy made a tremendous difference in my perception of the world outside of my own skin and bones.  The world I perceive with my eyes and other senses now often has the vivid quality I associate with Disney movies.

If you are in pain now consider asking yourself this question:

What is there about my life that I can smile about?



An Open Letter to Someone I Never Met, Part II

Saturday, February 21, 2015


What appears below is a continuation of a letter I began yesterday.

Hello again,

When I finished writing yesterday I wasn't sure I would have more to say.  I made an agreement with myself that I would write more to you if I felt there was more in my heart that I needed to express.  This morning I realized that there was.  Perhaps I will have to write to you for a while.  And I will just put out of mind the possibility that you are not even alive now.

I feel I am thinking about you partly due to the nature of my current circumstances.  It took me a while to realize just how burned out I was feeling.  Lately I have been doing some research in an attempt to put words to what I have been feeling.  I realize I was feeling what could be described as burnout or compassion fatigue.  The seeds of my current distress were planted in my psyche years ago.  You played a role in this happening.  I want you to be held accountable for your actions in some way.  But I doubt that will ever happen.

I feel that you took a piece of my very self when you tried to kill my father.  You took a piece of my strength.  You took a piece of my ability to trust.  I nonetheless have some empathy for you.  Indeed I think I could have become someone like you if the influences around me had been worse than they were.

I have this habit of watching a show called Criminal Minds.  I just finished watching an episode in which a teenage boy fell under the influence of an adult man who was also an ex-convict.  They terrorized and brutalized young women together.  The teenage boy was especially vulnerable due to the void left in his life when he lost his father.  I can identify with the hollowness that adolescent boy felt.  I felt the same way.


Another way I could describe what I am grappling with would require me to reframe my life journey using descriptors from the fields of psychology and mythology.  You see I became very tired of being 'the good boy'.  I went to school, got good grades and behaved myself while the people and institutions around me failed me miserably.  I started feeling a lot of bitterness as a result of this.  You were a bad boy and I was a good boy.


Friday, February 20, 2015

An Open Letter To Someone I Never Met


Friday, February 20, 2015


This past week was a very eventful one.  I am feeling much better than I was feeling on Monday of this week.  My optimism is growing.

As I mentioned in my writing yesterday I decided to write a letter to the person who once nearly murdered my father.  This event took place more than thirty-two years ago.  But I find myself still unpacking the thoughts and feelings I had and have regarding what this individual did.

I will provide only the most basic details of what happened as a means of providing context.  My father was nearly murdered in June, 1982.  I was an eight year old boy at the time.  I learned some of the details of what happened years after this traumatic incident.  There is much I still do not know.  And I suspect I will never have answers to all the questions that have gone through my mind.  I was a very young man when I learned one important detail: my father was nearly murdered by a teenage boy.  According to my father’s recounting years after the event this boy was involved in some sort of inappropriate relationship with my stepmother of the time.

What follows is my open letter to this individual.  I don’t have any substantial hope that this letter will ever be read by the person who nearly killed my father.  But I am writing this letter more for me than for him.


Hello,

You may be very surprised to know that something you did over thirty years ago still causes me pain and confusion today.  I find it very painful to write this letter to you.  It’s additionally strange for me because I do not know your name.  In fact I basically know almost nothing about you.  I understand you were a teenage boy in June, 1982.  I also understand you attempted to murder my father by shooting him with a gun as he entered the very house I spent much of my childhood growing up in.  It is very weird for me to write a letter to someone I never met who nonetheless profoundly affected my life.  I want to begin by telling you a bit about myself.

I am a grown man now.  In fact, I have been an adult for about two decades now.  It’s a little sobering for me to still be working through the impact of events that took place over three decades ago.  I could give up and stop being so determined to free myself from the harmful impact of circumstances I could not escape when I was a child.  But I want my personal freedom.  I want a future unencumbered by the past.  As much as is humanely possible I want my future to be much bigger than my past ever has been.  And I believe this is indeed possible.  I wouldn’t be so committed to my own personal growth and healing if I thought such a future was not possible.

Nearly two years ago the trauma of my early life history was ignited by stressful events.  I will spare you the details of those events as they have nothing to do with you.  And yet the dormant, unhealed trauma within my psyche does have something to do with you.  You contributed to it by attempting to kill my father.

I became very sick in the summer of 2013.  I was very fortunate to have health insurance.  This gift provided me the means to climb out of what seemed to be an inescapable abyss.  I began seeing a therapist because my mental health left something to be desired.  Shortly after my initial consultation I received a diagnosis.  I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Throughout much of that summer I felt furious.  I was furious because I had already gone to treatment earlier in my life.  And yet somehow, despite all my past efforts, it became very clear that I would benefit from additional therapy.  In fact, I needed therapy.  Even now it’s painful for me to acknowledge just how much help I needed at the time.  I wasn’t exceedingly responsible in caring for myself earlier in my life history.  This became painfully obvious that summer.

Several months passed before I began to feel better.  At first it seemed all I could and did feel was anger.  I needed more support than I ultimately received from my family of origin.  I would understand later that my anger was a veneer for other feelings.  I carried an immense reservoir of sadness underneath the anger.  I am still swimming through the currents of my sadness now.  But I do feel much better.

I have many mixed feelings about you.  As I said at the beginning of my letter I find it very strange to write to someone I never met in person.  I suppose it’s possible our paths crossed in some way in which we were in the same place at the same time.  Maybe I even saw you with my own eyes.  But I don’t know your name.  And I don’t believe I ever will know your name.  You might be dead now.  I feel as if I am writing to a phantom.  But I am going to keep writing anyway.

I struggle to understand how you could do what you did.  I don’t understand how a teenage boy could attempt to murder an adult man.  But then again maybe there are other details that would help me to make sense of what you did.  But I would have to know these details to be able to do that.  I suppose it’s possible that my father harmed you in some way and was never held accountable for it in a formal, legal way.  I do not trust my father to consistently tell me the truth so I am not inclined to ask him to tell me more details about you. 

I also have wondered about your connection to my former stepmother.  I do not know details about your relationship with her either.  Perhaps she abused you.  Perhaps she made promises to do things for you in return for the “little favor” of helping her to try to murder my father.  Perhaps she manipulated you in such subtle ways that you could not comprehend the nature of what she was doing.  Perhaps you came to understand victimization as love.  Maybe you had a horrible home life and tried to escape it by finding other adults whom you thought would treat you better.  Maybe you were a runaway and were secretly living with one of my stepmother’s friends.  There are so many possible explanations for how you crossed paths with my stepmother and father.  What I do understand is that you shot my father at the behest of my stepmother.  You committed this grave act due to her influence.  But I don’t know what the nature of this influence was.  Perhaps she threatened to harm you if you did not cooperate.  I don’t know.

What happened on that early June night so many years ago hurt so many people.  And by “so many” I mean more than zero people.  That event caused extraordinary damage to my capacity to trust.  I lost my faith in my paternal family of origin, the Catholic Church and the field of law enforcement.  It was a trauma that compounded upon itself repeatedly.  I developed an incredible amount of cynicism, bitterness and suspiciousness as a result of what happened that June night.  And you were somehow a part of it.  But the nature of your involvement eludes me.

Do you know that I have spent my precious time and energy trying to imagine what your life might be like now?  I have wondered if you are still alive.  If you are alive I wonder what your life is like.  So many questions have gone through my mind in this last week.  Do you have a family of your own?  Are you working?  If you are working do you enjoy the work that you do?  Did you ultimately get an education beyond high school?  Are you gay?  Are you straight?  Do you live a law-abiding life now?  Have you ever thought about me?  Do you know I even exist?  Perhaps you never even knew I existed.  Perhaps you thought my stepmother’s two daughters were all the children my father and stepmother had between them.  Do you even know the full consequences of your actions on that single night?  Would you even care to know them if you learned of my existence?  Did your attempt to murder my father mark the beginning of your descent into a life of crime?  Did you try to kill other people?  Did you commit other criminal acts?  If you have committed other criminal acts were you ever held accountable in some way?  If you were held accountable for such acts what was the nature of the response?  Were you imprisoned?  Did you pay a fine?  Are you an angry and violent person now?

I will write it again.  It is very strange for me to write to you.  Perhaps you no longer exist.  Maybe your life is no more real than some of the memories in my own mind.

As I have thought about you I have tried to have empathy for you.  Despite everything I endured and survived I have tried to be a good, law abiding, reliable, kind, compassionate, fun person.  But it has often been difficult.  I have tried to do for you what I try to do for other people each and every day.  I have tried to give you what I call the benefit of the doubt.  Perhaps you had a horrible childhood.  Perhaps nobody was really there for you in a consistent way.  Perhaps love was as foreign a word to you as the words of a truly foreign language.  Perhaps you thought committing an act of murder somehow seemed good to you.  Maybe my former stepmother lied to you in an effort to brainwash you into believing my father was someone who deserved to be murdered.  I can only hypothesize.  Just sitting and writing to you is, in my opinion, an act of kindness and generosity on my part.

Perhaps you were a little boy who didn’t have enough friends to play with.  Maybe you were lonely a lot.  Maybe you were a latch key kid (like I was) who would go home after school and have nothing but your television set to keep you company.  Maybe your home life felt something like a prison.

Having compassion and empathy for others can be exhausting.  But I try to offer this to others anyhow.  I have some compassion for you.  But sometimes I feel you do not deserve it because you tried to murder a grown man.  In fact sometimes I have felt you didn’t deserve to live another day beyond June 3, 1982.  Why should you feel the sun on your face, eat good food, smile and do any of the countless other enjoyable things in life after committing such a heinous act?

Despite what you did and how it affected me I would actually be willing to sit down with you over a coffee and speak with you.  If you are still alive would you want to do that?

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Aiming Higher and Higher

Thursday, February 19, 2015



I unexpectedly found myself thinking of someone who played a role in the trauma I experienced as a young boy in 1982.  I wrote about this earlier this week here in my blog.  Today I decided to give myself a project to work on over the weekend before I again attend my outpatient program next Monday.  I am going to further write out my thoughts and feelings about the person who shot and nearly killed my father.  I am going to write in the format of an open letter.

I am pleased with how this week has unfolded thus far.  I completed the first week of my eight-week morning program.  I feel that I am really showing up for myself in a way that I never have done before.  I am continuing my existing healthy self-care practices including my daily writing, going to see my therapist each week and taking my vitamin D supplement.  I will also be attending a workshop focused on the topic of forgiveness beginning this coming Sunday.  And I am monitoring my finances on a daily basis!  I don’t know how I could work with greater diligence to improve the quality of my life.

Despite my feelings of frustration I also continue to be as proactive as I can be regarding my feet.  After consulting with my podiatrist I am switching my medication to prednisone.  This is the third medication I will be trying in the hope of finally completely healing the inflammation that has afflicted my feet for three months.  I hope this change will work.  The limitation of my mobility due to my feet issue has been really demoralizing.

Winter will be holding Minnesota in its icy grip through at least the beginning of March.  But at least the days are growing steadily brighter.

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

A Lighter Feeling


Wednesday, February 18, 2015


I am feeling a lot better today.  I think my decision to consciously carve out more time for sleep and meditation as well as the resources I am finding in the morning program I began this past Monday are contributing to my improved mood. 

I am even feeling more optimistic about my future.  I had a productive interview today which will allow me to get my foot in the door with a respected local company.  Perhaps it will lead to something a bit greater in the near future.  Whatever happens my sense of optimism about the possibilities of my future has received a much-needed infusion of energy.

I felt amused and encouraged when I noticed my smile in the rearview mirror of my friend’s car after my interview had ended.  I am able to smile more easily than I have in quite a while.  And this is true despite the fact that the temperature outside is approximately 0F.  The days are growing significantly longer but winter is holding Minnesota firmly in its grasp.  And yet in this moment I find myself easily consoling myself with the knowledge that spring will inevitably come, the days will inevitably warm up, the ice and snow will melt and the color green will once again proliferate beyond my windows.  In other words this present situation will pass away and be replaced by something new and different.

It may seem a bit premature for me to state what I will now share but I will do so anyhow.  I feel as if the completion of my healing process is inevitable.  I believe I truly can eventually create the life I have long dreamed of having.  I need to allow myself to continue to be present to what I am feeling.  I have been on this journey of healing for what has many times felt like a very long time.  At first I found it very difficult to be present to my feelings on a consistent basis.  But all the changes I have made in my life have contributed to my growing ability to be truly present in each moment of my life.  I am still learning how to be consistently present to my feelings.  I haven’t given up on my own process.  And I am not going to give up now.

I sense I am truly turning a major corner in my life.

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

A Lost Boy And A Thirst For Heroes

Tuesday, February 17, 2015



I had some unexpected insight in the last twenty-four hours.

I developed a habit of watching the television show Criminal Minds in the last few years.  Some people might find this to be an unhealthy habit.  The show features members of a specialized FBI unit investigating and pursuing some of the most violent and destructive people all over the country.  Some of the people they pursue commit some incredibly horrific and harmful acts on other human beings.  Sometimes I have wondered if my fascination with this show is an unhealthy one.  I watched a number of episodes yesterday.

Somewhere between yesterday afternoon and this morning I found myself unexpectedly reframing my habit of watching this show.  I more clearly understood an aspect of the show that appeals to me.  Watching the show inspires me because it contains people (the FBI agents) who live heroic lives.  I need heroes in my life.  And I realized that watching this show somehow inspires me to walk out the door each morning and keep trying to live a better life.  I need encouragement to keep going.  I need to believe there are other good people in the world who are dedicated to creating a workable, peaceful, equitable, safe, supportive world for all people.

I feel as if I have experienced a dearth of heroic males throughout much of my life.  In the last twenty-four hours I found myself reflecting on this theme as well.  The names of my best friends from childhood passed through my mind.  Another person who influenced my life is someone I have (to my knowledge) never met.  This is the person who, as a teenage boy at the time, shot and nearly murdered my father.

For whatever reason I find myself thinking about that person today.  I wonder if he is still alive.  Given his age at the time of my father’s near murder in 1982 he would be approximately 46 to 52 years of age today.  To my knowledge I have never met him.  I do not know his name.  I do not know how he became involved with my stepmother all those years ago.  If he is still alive today I do not know where he lives, if he works, if he has a family of his own and so on.  And I don’t even know if it is all that healthy to find myself thinking about him at all.

That a complete stranger did such incredible harm to my father was a grave injustice.  The fact that this stranger was a teenager and shot an adult man was only more outrageous.  When a child attempts to kill an adult (who has done no harm to him) there is an added element of outrageousness due to the fact that there is an imbalance in the power of the two people involved.  In an ideal world adults should not kill children.  And in that same ideal world children should not harm or kill adults who have done nothing to harm them.  But of course there are many other scenarios beyond these.

In the horrible calculus of the tragedy that struck my life when I was eight years old I rarely gave any thought to the individual who shot the gun and thereby nearly claimed my father’s life.  I suppose it was easier to feel aggrieved by my father whose poor choices ultimately led to such a horrible event being not just a possibility but becoming an actual reality.  It was also easy to be outraged by the behavior of my father’s siblings and parents.  To this day I have never understood how a group of supposedly upstanding Catholic people could be so incredibly negligent.  This has long been my opinion.  And nothing that has transpired in the intervening decades has changed my impression of the events of 1982.

I don’t know what I will ultimately do with the thoughts I have had recently about this person whom I never met but whose actions ultimately caused me such harm.  I can’t help but wonder if he has ever paused a moment in his own life and wondered whatever became of that eight year old boy whose father he nearly murdered.  I see him as both a perpetrator and a victim.  With consistent love, guidance and support he might have made different choices.

……

The days are quite obviously growing longer now.  But the cold remains.  It will feel more typical of January this week.  I feel much better than I did a year ago.  I would like to believe that I am continuing to heal.  I believe this is true.  My ancient anger continues to fade away.  My sadness remains.  But with the outer shell of anger disappearing it is easier for me to discern what is underneath my sadness.  Somewhere underneath my sadness is my strength and resilience.  Somewhere within me is the invincible sun I have written about at other times in my blog.


Monday, February 16, 2015

Another Jump

Monday, February 16, 2015


I began an eight week program this morning that I hope will help me to improve my life more quickly than I have been managing to do thus far.  I feel a bit better for having shown up this morning.  I actually already did one of the workbook exercises reserved for tomorrow.  I suppose I am slipping into the archetypes of "stellar student" and "good boy" which I regularly exemplified during the earliest years of my education.

I nonetheless am feeling quite apathetic.  And I am also feeling quite sad.  I am beginning to feel weary of winter now.  Snow is falling outside as I write.  It is a gentle snowfall.  The individual flakes are falling in such a way that they seem to be genuinely playful.  I would like to see the dormancy of winter pass away soon.  And perhaps it will.  Maybe we will have an early spring this year.

My apathy is due in part to the fact that my feet do not seem to be improving much if at all.  I am feeling some fear that the best years of my health may already be behind me.  But I won't give up.  I believe I can still better my circumstances and live a healthy, rewarding life.


Sunday, February 15, 2015

What Is One Way To Make Life Better? Try New Things!

Sunday, February 15, 2015


I can partially credit the quality of my present life to my willingness to try new things.  I think in some regard we start to die a little bit when we calcify around a complex of rigid ideas about how our own lives should be.  Tomorrow I am going to take yet another courageous leap and begin an eight week program designed to further enhance my health.  I hope this program will help me to move beyond my recent and persistent feeling of being stuck.

A primary aspect of the program is something called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).  According to the program literature I have already received the purpose of ACT is to "help you live a rich, full and meaningful life while effectively handling the pain that inevitably comes your way."  This may be realized through ACT's six core processes.  These processes are as follows:

  • Contact with the present moment
  • Acceptance
  • Values
  • Defusion
  • Committed Action
  • Self-As-Context

Following these processes allows for the development of psychological flexibility.  The antithesis of psychological flexibility would be psychological inflexibility.  Such a condition is essentially defined by the opposite of the six processes noted above.

As I contemplate the nature of my current struggle I realize my struggle can be understood within the frame of the universal human experience of grief.  I am still grieving the life I never had and feeling confused regarding the life I still can have.  I feel confused about how I can let go of my early life history and all the associated pain.  In a sense it seems I need to walk the narrow line between fusion and defusion.

The ACT program literature defines cognitive fusion as "being caught up in our thoughts to the extent that they control self-awareness and influence behavior."  I do not wish to be constantly caught up in the horrible memories I have of my earliest life history.  I do not wish to be 'fused' with my past history.  The supposed antidote to fusion is defusion.  In defusion you learn to step back and separate or detach from thoughts, images and memories.  I feel a bit uncomfortable with a practice of 'pure' defusion, however, because it would seem to imply that I do not acknowledge my memories sufficiently to allow for my grieving process to unfold and ultimately conclude in a healthy way.  How do I grieve the past without getting stuck in it?

......

My sadness is a bit more omnipresent than usual today because it is the birthday of my father's younger sister.  I sent my aunt a birthday card last year.  At that time I was still attempting to find some way to include my family of origin in my life while simultaneously having a serious disagreement with several members of my biological family regarding their past conduct and my belief that their behavior was highly hypocritical.  You could perhaps call this approach deciding to agree to disagree.  But I eventually realized this apparent middle ground would not satisfy my own needs.  I needed the preventable pain of my childhood to be acknowledged, witnessed and stopped.  But it wasn't.  And no explanation I have ever received as to why events unfolded as they did has ever neither sufficiently answered my questions nor assuaged my pain.

My ACT literature acknowledges the significance of values in living a healthy life.  I ultimately came to the decision that one of my important values is including people in my life who will acknowledge and witness me both in my happiness as well as in my pain.  My paternal family of origin was not able to be present to my past and more recent pain in a healthy way.  And so I chose to be true to my own values.

Following your own values is sometimes a very difficult proposition.  Adhering to your system of values will sometimes lead you to make choices you might find very painful.  I want and need the people whom I include in my life to see both the light and dark aspects of my life.  I need people I include in my life to be full witnesses and full participants in my life.  I need people who are capable of being with me in both my joy and my pain.




Saturday, February 14, 2015

Bearing Healthy Witness

Saturday, February 14, 2015


I have mixed feelings about today.  It is Valentines Day.  I wonder if I will unexpectedly see lots of healthy couples (gay and straight) in the course of the social activities I plan to attend today.  I still feel a lot of deep sadness about the losses I have experienced over the course of the last eighteen months.  Sometimes loss is a very painful experience.  I want to find a way through the sadness I feel now.  I want to believe I am moving in the right direction.

I write my blog for a number of reasons.  One reason I write is for the purpose of enhancing my conscious awareness about what I am feeling and what aspects of my past life history still cause me pain.  Lately I have been more aware of the disappointing aspects of my adolescence.  I rarely felt witnessed by my father and stepmother in the years I was becoming a man.

It is my opinion that a child is not likely to pass through adolescence and become a healthy adult if healthy models of adulthood are lacking.  I did not feel witnessed as my sexuality developed.  And I certainly did not feel I could be honest with my father about being gay while I was still living at home.  It is a sad truth that I felt I had to hide this aspect of myself from my father.  I felt I had to hide it to minimize the risk of additional harm or neglect.

The grief I carried about my much less than optimal adolescence is just one piece of the immense grief I carried for far too long.  I am still grieving now.  I cannot clearly see when this grief shall come to an end.  I do believe that these is an end.  But I cannot clearly discern when that ending will arrive.

I feel quite weary lately.  I feel tired out due to the amount of energy I have already spent seeking to feel better and improve my life.  I made some major changes in my life in the last two years.  And yet for all the changes I have made I still am not experiencing the results I desire.  There are many days when I ask myself why this is so.  I sometimes believe I need to have still more patience.  I sometimes believe I need to go about the process of improving my life in a different way.  And other times I believe I simply have had a larger measure of misfortune than any one person should endure in a single life.

There are times when I feel a bit guilty or pathetic that I am not more grateful for what is good in my life.  I am fortunate to have excellent health insurance that is allowing me to finally attend to my old psychic wounds in a thorough way.  I am fortunate to have friends both near and far who care about me.  I am fortunate to still enjoy a fairly functional physical body.  And yet despite all these good aspects of my life I still feel so disappointed and sad lately.  I want to move beyond the pain and disappointment of my early life history.  It is taking more time and effort than I would prefer.

I find myself wondering when all of the trees will be green again.



Friday, February 13, 2015

It's Time To Go Deeper

Friday, February 13, 2015


I have recently written about the issue of compassion fatigue.  According to the Compassion Fatigue Awareness Project a variety of symptoms may be associated with compassion fatigue.  I am listing these symptoms below along with a short commentary regarding my own personal story.

Excessive blaming - I certainly did this plenty back before I sought out additional treatment.  I had every right to feel upset because my father and other significant figures in my life did repeatedly fail to care for me well.  But eventually you have to let go of the hurt and seek out people who will be there for you.

Bottled up emotions - I had a lot of grief, sadness and anger that went unresolved for a very long time.

Isolation from others - I sometimes engage in this coping mechanism when I feel overwhelmed by the behavior of others.

Receives unusual amount of complaints from others - I haven't experienced this too frequently.

Voices excessive complaints about administrative functions - Dysfunctional workplace environments can undermine my own wellness.

Substance abuse used to mask feelings - I feel fortunate to have never struggled with this.

Compulsive behaviors such as overspending, overeating, gambling, sexual addictions - My primary challenge in regards to this cluster of behaviors has been to better manage my financial resources.

Poor self-care - When I feel especially unmotivated I may be loathe to shave on a regular basis.

Legal problems, indebtedness - During the initial phase of my recovery process I sought out legal resources to determine if I could possibly sue my father.  This ultimately was not tenable.  Walking away from my dysfunctional family of origin ultimately was a better choice.

Reoccurrence of nightmares and flashbacks to traumatic event - This is not uncommon for individuals who meet criteria for a PTSD diagnosis.  I sometimes have nightmares.

Chronic physical ailments such as gastrointestinal problems and recurrent colds - I have experienced some significant bouts of illness in the last few years.  I am still learning to take better care of myself.

Apathy, sad, no longer finds activities pleasurable - I have become increasingly aware of the persistent and immense sadness I carried around for much of my life.  When I was first attending treatment I had to initially deal with my feelings of anger and outrage.  Underneath these feelings was my longstanding sadness.

Difficulty concentrating - I have certainly experienced this.  When a person is re-traumatized any number of symptoms can be present.  I can recall having difficulty concentrating in the immediate aftermath of distressing events or interactions with others.

Mentally and physically tired - I felt fairly mentally exhausted after I finished graduate school in 2011.  Considering the fact that I had not given adequate attention to the trauma in my early life history this is not at all surprising.

Preoccupation - I suspect this symptom can be very common when we are trying to do more in life than we can manage.

In denial about problems - This would accurately describe my father.

......

I will be starting an intensive program next week which I hope will turbo-charge my healing process.  I would like to find a way to work through my remaining issues in an effective and timely way.




Thursday, February 12, 2015

Loving Myself More

Thursday, February 12, 2015



I haven’t been a big fan of Valentine’s Day throughout at least part of my life.  I know this is true due in part to my mixed experience of relationships throughout my own life history.  I haven’t spent much time in a Hallmark card section in the last several weeks.  I don’t usually do this anyway.  But I nonetheless do want to find abiding love in my life.  I believe I can make my current and future relationships stronger and more enjoyable than what I have experienced in the past.

I am choosing to love myself more than I ever have by electing to participate in an outpatient treatment program.  The program is offered by Choices Psychotherapy.  The program will require me to give up my mornings four days a week for the next eight weeks.  I am excited by what I might be able to accomplish in the coming weeks.

It’s been nearly twenty months since I began going to weekly individual psychotherapy.  Looking back it is clear to me that my health was not that good prior to my decision to go to psychotherapy.  I can still recall treating the symptoms of my low back pain during my trip to Germany in May, 2013.  And yet I wasn’t really addressing the underlying cause of the pain.  I was also most likely experiencing at least a mild case of dysthymia during my first winter living in Minnesota.  I was probably Vitamin D deficient that entire winter.  A deficiency of this vitamin can have significant consequences for mood.  And of course my early life history of trauma was still clouding my perception of the world.  But I didn’t  know that this was true.  My past was still clouding my perception of the world.

I left behind the thicket of anger and reactivity quite a while ago.  Last summer seems like ancient history now.  The summer of 2013 seems positively prehistoric.  Now I find myself in The Landscape of Sadness.  I want to develop new tools so I can ultimately leave this landscape behind.  I am not sure how long this will take.  But I am willing to commit to the process of improving the quality of my life.

I find myself more apt to well up with tears of sadness when I remember how I previously took care of myself.  My self-care skills were not that great.  But then again I didn’t have great models of self-care as embodied by my biological parents. I want to find the middle ground between ignoring my sadness and wallowing in it. I believe what I embark upon next week may help me to do this.